


every shore with you

by psikeval



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 20:36:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3704265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psikeval/pseuds/psikeval
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The city rebuilds, and so do they.</p>
            </blockquote>





	every shore with you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vulpineRaconteur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulpineRaconteur/gifts).



Months after the qunari attack, Kirkwall is still sluggish and too quiet. The stench of pyres has finally faded from all but the worst bits of Lowtown, but the feeling of dull unrest remains like the stains of blood on the Hightown streets. It's a hateful city, with little mobs going out on the Wounded Coast to hunt Tal-Vashoth like it'll bring their loved ones back.

It's probably not a place Isabela would choose to be, if she had any sense.

Her new ship doesn’t seem to sit quite right in the docks yet, uneasy as she feels standing at her old place by the bar. No word from Hawke, no news of Castillon or his bloody useless hirelings, hardly even a peep from Varric, what with half his contacts in the city having been slaughtered. It all just feels like waiting, and Isabela thought she’d done past her share of that already.

Half the west wall of the Hanged Man burned while the city was being attacked. Nobody makes fixing taverns their priority, which seems like a damned shame—where else are all these wretched bastards supposed to buy ale? So Isabela sits and buys drinks for herself and Varric and Norah, pays for a room she never sleeps in, and Corff talks rot about the Maker blessing her. She tells him to shove off.

When she's not there, Isabela stocks up the ship, scours the docks for half-decent sailors. But it's in the Hanged Man that she gets her first visitor.

The filthy floorboards there are used to the heavy, stumbling steps of drunken idiots, men who can’t keep their footing even on dry land. But staring down at her untouched drink, she hears something different—steps that are delicate and precise, hesitant. So very familiar.

“Kitten,” she says, neutral as she can be, still unsure what to expect. Everyone deals in different ways with what they call betrayal—with finding out that someone else’s interests aren’t always quite the same as theirs, that mere mortals have their own vices and plans.

Isabela grants herself the small weakness of not looking up for a moment. She’s seen the way people look at her once they decide they know what's true— that she’s a pirate, a thief, a whore and a scoundrel and little else of note, always looking out only for herself. She wonders how the change will sit on this particular face.

(Sit on her face, ha. On a better day she could’ve made something of that.)

After one last turn of her fingers against the rim of her mug, Isabela looks up.

Merrill smiles at her gently, fondly, the same as ever. “You came back.”

And it should be a relief—more than that, a bloody miracle—but she finds she's still waiting for the other shoe to drop, really. The looters hit the alienage harder than most places, knew they could get away with it. Every inch of Hightown will need to be polished and gleaming before anyone thinks to offer any help to the elves. “Which time do you mean?” asks Isabela, more sharply than Merrill deserves. Most of the world, she’s often thought, is sharper than Merrill deserves.

"Either. Though I already told you how glad I was the last time." (It's true. The way her eyes lit up with relief when Isabela walked into that throne room—it might have been even better than seeing Hawke kill the damn Arishok.) "Varric said you got a ship!"

All Isabela's careful guarded composure practically melts away at the words; she wants to bask in them, let the truth of it wash over her all over again; she wants to drag Merrill down to the docks right this second. "That I did."

"Is it a nice ship? How did you get it? Did you find it somewhere?"

“Oh," she waves a hand dismissively, but can't stop smiling. "There was some gambling and a duel involved.”

“Was it very exciting?” Merrill’s eyes shine a little brighter as she steps close, near enough to be kissed.

Isabela takes a moment to toss her hair for effect, since she hasn't bothered to tie it back today. "It's  _always_ exciting when I duel."

"I wish I could see it sometime. Dueling, I mean. Or your ship! I've still never been on the top bit."

"The deck, or the sails?"

"Either one, I suppose. Though I think I'd rather have a floor to step on, if it's moving."

“Deck it is, then," she declares with a nod. It aches, how much she's missed this — she can admit it now that Merrill is here, pretty as ever and smiling as if nothing's changed at all. (Perhaps, for once, it hasn't. Dangerous to hope for, but she has always liked taking risks.) "We could, you know. You and me and a skeleton crew, out on the open sea..."

“Can we really do that?”

“Of course we can!” Isabela brushes a bit of Merrill's hair back behind her ear, grinning. “But you’ll need a good hat.”

A delighted laugh bubbles up in Merrill's throat, a precious silvery sound that warms Isabela through before Merrill hesitates, a slightly concerned frown on her face. “Um. Isabela? The crew won’t really be skeletons, will they?”

“Ooh. No, but I like that,” she decides, steering Merrill out the door with an arm around her shoulders. “It would be very intimidating, and a dead sailor might be less trouble than a live one. Maybe next time I’ll try recruiting up on Sundermount.”

"Only they wouldn’t look very good in hats." 

Isabela smiles as they step out into the smoke-dimmed sunlight. “ _Everyone_ looks good in hats, kitten. Trust me.”

 

\--

 

Leaving the docks behind is always a pure relief, but one Isabela hardly notices this time, so busy is she helping Merrill find something akin to sea legs. She holds Merrill’s hands in hers and smiles, can’t stop smiling, with the wind in her hair and the sun on her arms, Merrill tottering on the rolling deck of _her ship, Captain Isabela’s ship_ , a tiny kingdom making its way through the waves. 

Her new first mate, a cheerful tattooed Antivan girl with arms to rival Aveline's, takes charge of steering and wrangling what little crew they have into order. With that taken care of, Isabela gets to spend her time hoisting Merrill up to perch on the rail, holding on carefully to her waist— Merrill laughs and gives a delighted little shriek when they dip into the hollow of the rolling sea, arms tight around Isabela’s neck — and kissing Merrill, slowly and thoroughly, letting Merrill nip at her lips and circle the tip of her tongue along the stud below, until Merrill’s new hat is nudged off her head and overboard, to a mournful cry from the lookout in the sails above.

(It's decided Merrill will be allowed to stay, with or without a hat, and a new one will be bought from Isabela's favorite shop when they've docked.)

Then for a while Isabela takes on steering herself, unable to stay away for long. Merrill makes friends with the surface dwarf who left behind the Amaranthine pirates to be Isabela's quartermaster, and various flasks of spirits are passed about as the afternoon wears on.

The sunset over open water is exactly as glorious as she remembered it, gilding the sky a perfect golden red, clouds fading to pink and purple as they watch, nestled together on the prow. Isabela's muscles ache pleasantly from the work she hasn't done properly in years, and Merrill's vallaslin shine faintly silver in the disappearing rays of the sun.

“Oh, let’s never go back,” Merrill sighs, then glances sharply away, hiding her face, if not the fretted knotting of her fingers in her lap. “That’s awful, isn’t it?”

“Not a bit." She gently squeezes Merrill's waist, nestles her chin on one narrow shoulder. “Now you know how I feel.”

That night, they snuggle close under the blankets on Isabela's bunk, smaller than her old bed at the Hanged Man and ten times as beloved. Merrill's hair smells like the ocean, now, and she squeaks and squirms when Isabela buries her face in it and breathes in. She's beautiful, sleepy and smiling, and she fits so well in Isabela's arms.

It's overwhelming, to have a heart so full, but it feels like it can fit here on the ocean, under so many stars.

"Are we sleeping now," Merrill whispers, "or can we still have sex?"

Isabela muffles her laughter against Merrill's neck, scrapes her teeth gently over the skin. "As much as you like. I missed you, kitten."

It's still hard to admit, still tightens in her throat, but the words slip out easily enough, when they need to. There are days Isabela still curses her feet for leading her back to Kirkwall, when it's still frightening to feel as if she might like to belong _with_ people, and not just to herself and the sea. But perhaps it's something she could learn, in time.

"Oh, _good_ ," Merrill sighs, and Isabela thinks it will be. It will be.

 

\--

 


End file.
